A quilt is a quilt is a quilt. A quilt by any other name is just as warm/lovely/(other adjective of your choosing). Will quilt for food. To quilt or not to quilt, THAT is the question. Have needle, will quilt. A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou beside me, quilting in the wilderness...
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August 3, 2011

Quilt 12: Design for Egyptian Placemats

Sister/Friend Janelle is about to marry her "Prince Charming". She's a wonderful woman who deserved her happily-ever-after and I couldn't be more delighted. I want to give her something special as a wedding present.

On a recent trip to one of my favorite stores, I saw some fat quarters with prints inspired by ancient Egyptian colours and designs. Knowing Janelle is mad for anything connected with ancient Egypt, I grabbed those quarters and enough coordinating bits to make a set of four placemats and napkins.

Here are the prints:The blue-with-stars (on top) and the Egyptian-inspired stripes were the ones that first caught my eye. The three fabrics to the right coordinate with the colours in the stripe. The fabric underneath the quarters (the reddish-brown) will be used for binding and for the knapkins.

I pulled out my quilt design software and came up with this:This will be my first nine-patch quilt project.

Anytime you buy fabric before you have a design (and measurements) it's a risk. Naturally I found that I came up short on 3 of the fat-quarters. There's plenty of the strip, plenty of the turquoise, but after I cut out the squares I found I needed 24 more squares (8 each of the gold and two maroon fabrics). Not a problem! I cut 24 squares from my binding/knapkin fabric and have worked them into the design. The placemats won't match each other perfectly, but a little bit of individuality won't hurt.

To keep it all straight, I've stacked the squares for each placemat separately:All set! I'll get the blocks put together and will cut the "lattice" strips afterward.

2 comments:

G'day Liz,Loved reading your blog..... I came across it because I was searching for the Egyptian Stripe fabric you have in your photo. I don't suppose you know which collection it is from? - Cheers, Wendy

The fabric is from Robert Kaufman Fabrics (website: http://www.robertkaufman.com/)

The selvage printing on the main "Egyptian" print gives the name "Empress Bouquet" - but when I went hunting for it, I didn't find it named that on the website. But you'll find it on this page (scroll toward the bottom and note the 5 fabric swatches shown, it's the one in the middle).http://www.robertkaufman.com/quilting/quilts_patterns/empress_bouquet/

(You may have to copy/paste the URL above into your browser, as apparently I can't make a hyperlink work here in comments)

The other prints are from the same collection, but I don't have any of the selvage from them, so can't give you the names.

The print designer is Peggy Toole - and on the Kaufman website you can do a "search" with her name and see her other prints.

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